In the very first one of these joint discussions between Senator Douglas
and myself, Senator Douglas, without alluding at all to these platforms,
or any one of them, of which I have spoken, attempted to hold me
responsible for a set of resolutions passed long before the meeting of
either one of these conventions of which I have spoken. And as a ground
for holding me responsible for these resolutions, he assumed that they
had been passed at a State Convention of the Republican party, and that I
took part in that Convention. It was discovered afterward that this was
erroneous, that the resolutions which he endeavored to hold me
responsible for had not been passed by any State Convention anywhere, had
not been passed at Springfield, where he supposed they had, or assumed
that they had, and that they had been passed in no convention in which I
had taken part. The Judge, nevertheless, was not willing to give up the
point that he was endeavoring to make upon me, and he therefore thought
to still hold me to the point that he was endeavoring to make, by showing
that the resolutions that he read had been passed at a local convention
in the northern part of the State, although it was not a local convention
that embraced my residence at all, nor one that reached, as I suppose,
nearer than one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of where I was
when it met, nor one in which I took any part at all. He also introduced
other resolutions, passed at other meetings, and by combining the whole,
although they were all antecedent to the two State Conventions and the
one National Convention I have mentioned, still he insisted, and now
insists, as I understand, that I am in some way responsible for them.

At Jonesboro, on our third meeting, I insisted to the Judge that I was in
no way rightfully held responsible for the proceedings of this local
meeting or convention, in which I had taken no part, and in which I was
in no way embraced; but I insisted to him that if he thought I was